


Vivre (at the End of the World)

by lovesrogue36



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Art, Art History, Backstory, Gen, Military, Militia Era, Philadelphia, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesrogue36/pseuds/lovesrogue36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Matheson faces a new resistance, Militia wives and what remains of the art world, not to mention his best friend's slow spiral into madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Death of Sardanapalus, Eugene Delacroix

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Revolution nor am I associated with any of the cast or crew.
> 
> A/N: This is all Butters fault, for encouraging my nerdy obsessions. ;)

Ten Years After the Blackout  
September

General Matheson’s coach rumbled along the streets of Philadelphia, over the Expressway, through Old Chinatown, down Arch St. Inside, Miles tapped his fingers on his knee, patience worn thin by rats in the walls and a leak in the gunpowder room, the disgruntling results of a routine inspection at the West Munitions Storage Facility or, as it was better known, the Barnes.

It was nearly pitch black in the coach though dusk had yet to fall, heavy curtains drawn shut against the peering eyes of the poorly fed and housed population. The seclusion was supposed to be for his own protection but it was one security measure he never railed against. Miles didn’t have a reputation as a humanitarian; still, he was as glad to avoid looking into those hungry eyes as he was to avoid being seen by them.

The coach rolled to a stop, horses stomping outside. Flicking the curtain open an inch, he grunted confirmation of their arrival at the home of Captain Jonathon Olliver and his grating Texan wife, Miranda. The Old City offered everything the average Militia officer wanted: quaint cobblestone streets, antique doorknobs and other elements of so-called domestic bliss, or as close as one could come to such a thing in a world of war clans and rampant diphtheria. Miles still wasn’t sure he saw the appeal of Independence Hall, let alone this middle-upper class existence.

He stepped out of the coach, his guards and driver taking up positions outside the house as he marched to the front door, rapping his knuckles against green-painted wood. There was a quiet shuffling on the other side, as if someone had been standing there waiting for him, and Miles had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes.

On the battlefield, in inspections, he was the very picture of the composed and straight-laced general. He had less inclination towards the incomprehensible etiquette of social-climbing Militia wives. The door opened on a freshly pressed Captain Olliver who snapped a sharp salute. “Good evening, General Matheson.”

Miles returned the gesture before relaxing his posture slightly. “Good evening, Captain.”

“Please come in, sir. May I take your coat?”

He glanced down at his uniform, green wool fitting to his wrists. “Ah, no, I think I’m good.” Miles raised an eyebrow, lips pressed into a thin line.

Olliver flushed, clearing his throat. “Of course, sir. Something to drink perhaps?”

“That you can do.” Miles followed Olliver into the front room, finding Miranda encircled by her other guests. To one side stood the Nevilles and to the other was Jeremy, who was surely only there to round out an even six, with Miles still ‘woefully unmarried’, as quoted by Bass from the morning’s paper. It was quite possible having a society column either meant they had officially achieved civilization or that they had peaked, and defeat was on the horizon.

He shook hands with both of the Nevilles as Olliver handed him a glass of Scotch. Miles had to wonder where he’d gotten it but, then, Scotch was Scotch. “Tom. Julia.”

“Always a pleasure, General,” she smiled, that lukewarm expression that always made him think of his high school girlfriends’ mothers, sizing him up in the entryway.

“Well, we all know I’m not the best company. Let’s not push it.” There was a titter of nervous laughter as he pressed the glass to his lips, hiding the faintest twitch of a smile. Let them sit on their anxiety, wonder if they were meant to laugh or protest. Kept the supplicants in line, Bass always said.

“That you’re not. Sir.”

And then, of course, there was Jeremy, who couldn’t be kept in line if he was tied down. The officers and their wives stilled, even the clinking of ice in glasses quieting for a moment, but Jeremy only shot him a crooked grin. “So, Miranda. I hear you have an exciting new purchase to unveil.”

The moment passed, her face lighting up with a smile. “Word’s spread so quickly! I half expect to have my door beaten down soon,” she joked, glancing nervously at Miles. “It’s in the living room. I had such a difficult time deciding where to put it, really, but it just looks spectacular over the fireplace.”

Miles allowed himself to retreat into the familiar slosh of alcohol and clattering of uneven ice cubes, though Miranda kept on blathering. He followed the others into the living room, grabbing Jeremy by the back of his collar and grumbling in his ear, “Insubordinate shit.”

“It’s all in my job title, sir.” Jeremy clinked his glass against Miles’, as over-confident as ever.

As they joined the couples in the living room, gathered around the fireplace with the appropriate exclamations and worldly discourse, Miles squinted at the painting everyone seemed so enamored with. “It’s an original Delacroix,” Miranda was saying, and Miles didn’t speak French by a long shot but he was fairly certain she was butchering that name, “ _The Death of Sardanapalus._ Isn’t it extraordinary?”

Actually, it was a little horrific, to be honest. He glanced around the tidy room with its modest furniture, pillows carefully placed on looted chairs to hide the wear and the gleaming mantelpiece, painted white over a missing chunk of wood. It was a comfortable space, warm and inviting if a little war-torn, as opposed to the bloody massacre hanging over the fireplace.

Everyone was still gushing about it though and dinner party repartee never was his strong suit. “It’s a little graphic for the living room, isn’t it?”

All of them turned to him like one person, eyebrows raised in silent disapproval, and for just a moment, Miles felt like he was twelve, asking his grandmother why they couldn’t use paper plates instead of the good china. He rubbed his thumb through the condensation on the glass, shrugging a shoulder. “I mean, I don’t know anything about art, but we see horrible things on the battlefield constantly. Just, I know I for one want to come home to something that takes my mind off it.”

Julia finally broke the silence, gesturing to the painting with her wine glass. “Well, I suppose it is a little gory. But it tells a story; it isn’t just gratuitous violence. And the coloring goes so nicely in here, Miranda.”

He felt certain Jeremy was laughing into his Scotch at him. Miles sighed to himself, remembering he was only here so the Ollivers could say they hosted _General Matheson_ for dinner. They’d invited Bass first and only turned to him when the president had invented a conflicting engagement, as if the two of them didn’t talk or something.

Sinking onto the couch, one arm draped over the back, Miles glared at the fierce-looking sultan, or whoever he was supposed to be, sprawled on a bed and surrounded by bodies. His eyes traced the ragged, naked curve of a woman with a dagger in her breast and wondered why this Delacroix would have painted a woman in such a way. He must not have been a soldier; a man who’s seen combat always wants his women safe and warm, soft and inviting.

But, then, Miles knew nothing about art.

_Four Years After the Blackout  
Two Months After the Siege of Philadelphia_

_“We can’t live like this much longer,” Bass growled, sitting on an over-turned bucket with maps and papers spread across his make-shift desk. “I can’t find a goddamn thing. It makes us look like a bunch of warmongers.”_

_“Aren’t we?” Miles lay on his cot, boots dangling off the edge as he sliced into an apple with his Bowie knife._

_“Doesn’t mean we have to be uncivilized. We need buildings, not just for us, but for storage. Walters is almost ready to start manufacturing swords and bayonets but we’re going to need someplace to put all of them. We need an armory, Miles.”_

_“So we’ll take over some of the old civic buildings. There’s got to be loads of places that are just abandoned.”_

_Miles led an exploratory unit into the heart of Philadelphia the following week, his men tramping through concrete jungle. Skyscrapers rose above them like hollow shells, half their pane glass windows shattered out. The civic center was a mess, City Hall burnt out and the surrounding blocks all but razed in the early days of the Blackout, when the cities had been reduced to panic._

_But just beyond that, there were districts that had simply been deserted. In the Old City, Independence Hall stood looking as elegant and grand as ever, if a little worse for the wear. The so-called “Museum District,” according to a ripped tourist map, was a ghost town, abandoned marble and stone jutting out from the remains of a wide parkway, cars battered and dumped every few feet._

_It had only been four years since he’d had his hands on the steering wheel of a sleek red Challenger and Miles still found foot and horse travel frustrating. They spent over two hours picking their way back across the city to Edgely Field and by the time he collapsed in the wide tent he shared with Bass, all he wanted to do was pass out._

_Over the next several weeks, though, Miles found himself directing the move of their entire company from Edgely into the city. They scrubbed and scraped and in time, the Old City even looked habitable. Bass oversaw the conversion of Independence Hall from a people’s museum to an imposing but practical base of operations. Much to Miles’ protest, he even had the Liberty Bell moved into the hallway. Said it “strengthened their tenuous hold on power,” and “that people wanted to believe in tradition.” Bass always said things like that after they took Philadelphia, as if he knew what he was talking about._

_But the old problems raised their heads, almost before they were settled in their new home: they still needed stables, an armory, a hospital. They might finally be comfortable but no one else was._

_“Armory’s got to be first priority. We have to be able to defend ourselves. It needs to be something sturdy, something easy to guard.” Bass slouched in the wooden chair from downstairs, with the carved sun peeking out behind his head, feet on an upside down crate._

_Miles squatted by the fireplace, stoking it with the poker. “What about next door?”_

_“Nah, Congress Hall’s too nearby. What if the gunpowder blew or there was a fire? Too easy to attack us.”_

_Licking his lips, he watched the flames dance. “Buildings in the Museum District are almost all marble or stone and they’re raised up so they don’t flood.”_

_“Anything left inside?”_

_“Don’t know. Probably. I’ll send Jeremy to check it out tomorrow.”_

_Miles half expected Jeremy to report that the museums were packed with paintings and priceless vases or something else equally helpful but, to his surprise, they were nearly empty. It was a mystery, really. Looting was expected of stores, groceries, banks, private homes. But a museum?_

_“What is art worth when you’re starving to death?” Miles had muttered aloud to no one in particular, his voice bouncing off the stone walls of the former Philadelphia Museum of Art. Discolored squares on the walls told them where pieces had once hung and though some tchotchkes and broken sculptures remained, the vast, echoing halls held almost nothing. The inside of the museums looked about as abandoned as the city district around them did._

_Bass divided a few of the more intact pieces between Independence Hall and their top officers, calling it a thank you for their loyal service. Miles called it bribing the wives but it seemed to work and soon Philadelphia was a well-oiled capital._

_Scavenged weapons like guns, bullets and reenactment cannons soon lined the halls of the Philadelphia Museum and their blacksmiths, headed by Lieutenant Walters, neatly packed the nearby Barnes Foundation with swords and bayonets. Together, the two buildings became the West Munitions Storage Facility, though the men never quite got out of the habit of calling it simply the Barnes._

Miles narrowed his eyes at the painting over the fireplace, listening with half an ear as the other men debated the existence of the Hedgehog, the pain-in-the-ass resistance figurehead who seemed to be all talk and no action. He figured he should probably put in a comment on the matter but he couldn’t seem to look away from Delacroix’s silent, frozen horror story. Something about it sickened him and it wasn’t just the brutality. There was a casual flagrance about the slaughter, about the king’s unconcerned features. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

Miranda announced supper, gushing to Julia about butternut squash, and they all stood, their glasses politely returned to the tray on the coffee table. He tossed back the remainder of his Scotch before setting the glass down, shoving away the desire to pop an alcohol-soaked ice cube in his mouth as well.

Each of them began to file into the dining room but Miles gestured to the painting, turning to Captain Olliver with a flash of genuine curiosity and a finely honed suspicious nature. “Where did you get this, Captain?”

Olliver and his wife exchanged a darting glance, both looking to the painting  and each other with slightly widened eyes. “Just luck, I guess,” the officer said finally, a bit hoarse. He grinned but his fingers twitched without a glass to steady them and, anyway, the expression didn’t reach his eyes to begin with.

Miles opened his mouth to press him for more information but the Ollivers were saved from whatever lie they were about to spin by a knock on the door. The captain almost tripped over himself rushing to answer it, the others making small talk halfway into the dining room, but Miles could hear the request for General Matheson all the way from the front door.

He crossed the house in several long strides, nodding to the young man that stood in the doorway and taking the rolled piece of paper he held outstretched. Miles dropped a coin into the boy’s hand. “Thank you, Billy,” he murmured, unraveling the message as the boy tossed him a sloppy salute and darted off into the evening.

“What is it, sir?”

Miles raised an eyebrow at Olliver’s unintended impertinence but didn’t look up from the message, Bass’ perfect script marred by spilt ink and a clear irritation.

_Penn’s Landing Granary under attack. Two bucket brigades on scene, requesting Militia backup. Possible rebel insurgents, the bastards._

He ran a hand through his hair, nodding to Olliver to follow him as he marched back into the living room and tossed the message in the fire. “I’m very sorry to interrupt your evening, ladies, but duty calls. Captain Baker, you’ll come with me.”

A smile almost tugged at his lips at the steam coming from Tom’s head that the other man was still the favorite of both generals. Jeremy, for that matter, seemed all too happy to make his apologies to the ladies and excuse himself, stepping outside to ready their horses. Penn’s Landing wasn’t terribly far and it would be quicker to return for the coach later than try and travel in it.

Miles shook the appropriate hands and turned up his collar against the chill of late September, glancing over his shoulder into the living room as he pulled open the front door. Catching a last glimpse of _The Death of Sardanapalus,_ something cold and disconcerting settled over him. He blamed it on the weather but even the distant sound of hand-cranked fire sirens seemed to disagree.  

[ ](http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/82626.html)

 


	2. Man with a Lamb, Pablo Picasso

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Yeah, so it probably doesn’t make sense to put a granary next to the water. But it was convenient. So.

By morning the smoke at Penn’s Landing had cleared and the damage was far more extensive than they could have guessed. “Who attacks a _granary?_ ” Miles demanded, glaring over his ale. The Republic might not have had the trade contacts Georgia did but Miles, for one, had never complained about trading his morning coffee for a morning beer.

Bass sighed, peeling a biscuit apart between his fingers. “It’s smart, really. With the granary right on the river, they had easy access.”

There was a sharp rap on the door and Bass called for them to come in. Sergeant Bailey, the young, dedicated head of the ‘bucket brigade’ and the closest thing they had to a fire inspector, saluted, standing at the end of the table with a stack of papers that were giving Miles a headache just looking at them. “Thank you for your promptness, Sergeant.”

The young man inclined his head, mouth set in a grim line. “Of course, sir.”

“What are the damages?”

“It’s not good, sir. The fire wiped out nearly three-quarters of our winter supply.”

Miles choked on his beer, golden liquid sloshing out onto the table as he slammed the glass down. “Nearly _three-quarters?_ But it’s _September!_ Who-” He cleared his throat, ignoring Bass’ glare. “No, I’m sorry, Sergeant. Go on.”

“That’s all right, sir. I was shocked as well. It looks as though they used Molotov cocktails, thrown from boats. The windows facing the river all appear to have been shattered from the outside and we found several broken whiskey bottles. Luckily, though, no one was hurt.”

“Jesus. We’ll have to ration the troops’ food allotment. They’ll be rioting by February.”

Bass kicked his shin under the table, gesturing for the written report. “This is a new one, all right,” he sighed, flipping through the pages.

“If I may, sir?”

“Please, Sergeant.”

“I don’t think this is the work of the rebels, at least not these U.S. guys. It’s too clean, too intentional for them; just not their M.O. All they ever do is blow stuff up. This was _smart_. Like you said, General, we’ll have to ration and hungry troops are dangerous troops, let alone men with starving families. They struck at our heart: our food supply.”

Miles sat back in his chair, swiping at a sticky drip of ale down the side of his glass. “So who do you think it is, then?”

“There have been whisperings about another resistance group led by someone calling themselves the Hedgehog. They’ve put out a couple of publications, real freedom fighter kind of stuff.” Bailey dug in his pocket, retrieving a rumpled piece of paper and holding it out. “They’ve been plastered all over the poor parts of town the last couple of months but as far as I know, no one knew this was coming.”

Bass took the handwritten pamphlet, skimming through it. “The Ma-quiss?”

“It’s kinda more like ‘mackey,’ sir.” They both raised their eyebrows and he blushed slightly, shuffling his feet. “I had a crush on my high school French teacher, sir.”

Even Miles chuckled into his beer at that but it did little to alleviate the pressure of relaying news to the troops that the winter stock was all but gone. Sergeant Bailey was right: this Hedgehog, whoever he was, knew where to strike so it’d hurt the most. Miles sort of wanted to strategize with him, before he put his head on a goddamn pike.

 “You remember when the country’s only problems were gun control, oil prices and paying off China?” Bass muttered as the door shut behind Bailey.

“Yeah, those were the good old days.”

“We need to do something, show the men we’re still a united front even with these attacks coming more and more frequently.”

At the time, Miles figured he meant a rousing speech or free beer. But as was more and more the case, Bass had other ideas. They’d argued about it that morning, broken crystal glasses and frightened away the help with their shouting. Miles tried to argue that the men needed a reason to reinforce their loyalty not a scare tactic.

He lost.

Seemed like he always lost those days.

He stood at the upstairs window of his room, whiskey in one hand and the other braced on the hilt of his sword. Bass had been furious when he refused to attend the executions and though he felt sick at the sight of the three guards from the granary, bound and blindfolded, against a hastily erected plywood wall, he couldn’t seem to look away.

They returned to the firing squad penalty many years ago but normally they were held outside the city and only for the most vile and treasonous of crimes. Bass’ claim that negligence equated treason turned his stomach; worse than that was the spectacle he was making of it. The men should have had their pay docked or lost their leave for six months, not been _executed._ This wouldn’t inspire people’s loyalty, only drive them into the waiting arms of the Hedgehog, no matter how prickly.

Miles sighed, scratching his forehead as he watched six uniformed Militia men raise guns to their shoulders from the base of the clock tower. Bass gave the order, standing behind them on the steps with his arms folded. Unbidden, that gruesome painting flashed in his head, _The Death of-_ some unpronounceable myth, he supposed.

The men fired all at once, the prisoner on the left crumbling to the ground. Even through layers of glass and brick, Miles could hear the wailing of the man’s wife from the small crowd.

Bass looked completely unaffected as the other two men were shot in turn. From upstairs, he swallowed hard, suffering a realization. That fierce-looking sultan, surrounded by callous slaughter, had reminded him of his best friend.

The door opened with a knock and Miles turned, rubbing at his eyes.

“Perhaps something to take your mind off it, sir.” Jeremy walked in without an invitation, holding out a file. _When did we get so bureaucratic?_ he couldn’t help wondering.

“What the hell is this?”

“The Ollivers’ bill of sale on their Delacroix.”

“Delakwa, huh? I knew she was saying it wrong. She’s from Texas, you know.” Miles sat his glass on the windowsill, thumbing open the file to a handwritten Bill of Sale.

“I know, sir.”

“And you know how I feel about Texas.”

Jeremy smirked. “I do, sir.”

Miles grumbled, reading through the familiar and unfamiliar names. _Jonathon Olliver. Barnabas Renfield. The Death of Sardanapalus, Eugene Delacroix. 29 x 32 7/16 inches_. “Should I find any of this interesting?”

“The person that supposedly sold them the painting.”

“Barnabas Renfield? Sounds like an alias.”

“Oh he was a real person. It’s just, he died in 1870.”

“Well, now, that _is_ interesting.”

“You know who might know something about this.”

Miles grunted in agreement, shrugging his coat on. “You’re too crafty for your own good, Jeremy.”

“So you like to tell me, sir.”

“Quit being so respectful. It doesn’t suit you,” Miles tossed over his shoulder, tucking the bill in his coat as the door slammed behind him. He left out the back, not wanting to run into Bass, or worse, an inconsolable widow. Jeremy was right: there was one man in Philadelphia who would know something about this and more than that, it just might be the thing to take his mind off the granary debacle.

John Ellis had lived and worked off Elfreth’s Alley long before the Blackout was even a conspiracy theory, let alone the Monroe Republic. In the ‘90s and 2000s, his shop had been a well-respected Philadelphia art gallery with an apartment upstairs. But, as Miles had once pointed out, the value of art had dropped dramatically after the power went out.

By the time he and Bass took the city, John had switched from dealing art to dealing weapons and though he was the worst kind of opportunist, he had willingly given up the gun portion of his business. Miles was well aware there was still one hidden wall panel filled with rifles but John was a friend and though he would have arrested anyone else for it, he was useful enough and quiet enough to warrant turning a blind eye.

Miles let himself inside, the bell jangling on the door as if it were a quaint general store. The walls were lined with antique swords and new bows, mostly, and John stood behind the counter, glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“Miles Matheson, is that you?” The older man emerged from behind the counter, arms outstretched.

“It’s been too long, John.” Miles shook the other man’s hand, jaw set firmly.

“What brings you to my end of town, General?”

Retrieving the folded bill of sale from his coat pocket, Miles snapped it open. “Fraud, maybe. One of my captains recently purchased a painting. I’d like to know where it came from.”

John arched an eyebrow, taking the paper and glancing over it. “Things must not be as bad for the Republic as they say, if General Matheson’s taking a personal interest in art theft.”

He cleared his throat, tapping the bill. “Know anything about this?”

“ _The Death of Sardanapalus?_ Sure, it’s in the Louvre, in France, or it was ten years ago.”

“It’s a fake?”

John squinted at the page, reading the dimensions aloud. “No, now wait a moment.” Stepping behind the counter, he skimmed long bookshelves before choosing one in particular and flopping it open on the counter. He thumbed through the index, bending down near to the page to read the small text. “Ah, no, I was right. This is the smaller version; it used to be in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

“But when we arrived in the city, the museums had already been sacked. You think someone’s been hanging onto it all these years?”

Straightening, he pulled his glasses off to clean them. “The museums weren’t sacked, they were emptied, right after the Blackout. It was a mystery, as if someone just marched inside in the middle of the night and filled truckloads, except we didn’t have trucks anymore. All that art, just vanished. If it’s starting to resurface, it could be worth a lot to the right people.”

“Newly wealthy Militia men and their wives, you mean.”

“And merchants or dealers, anyone with a bit of power or money.” John slid his glasses back onto the end of his nose, reading over the bill of sale again. “I take it you don’t know where Mr. Barnabas Renfield is?”

“It’s an alias.” Miles crossed his arms, tongue darting out of his lips. “Who could have done something like that, emptied the museums? And why?”

John shrugged. “Protect the art? Maybe it was just a gamble, hoping someday it would be worth something again. As for who…” He sighed, scratching his head.

“Don’t mess around, John. If somebody has this kind of stash, they could be garnering a massive fortune off the ignorance of my men. Who is it?”

“I can’t say for sure. But, if I were to harbor a guess, I’d say Elizabeth Hérisson.”

“Hérisson?” Miles narrowed his eyes, something like recognition dawning.

“She runs a brothel over on Brandywine St., called The Bronze Lamb.”

“A madam? Why am I not surprised?” Miles scoffed, shaking his head. He’d made a lot of missteps in judgment since declaring himself general but he could honestly say he’d never underestimated a whore on her intelligence or her influence. “Guess they want you to be really sure you aren’t gonna get slapped with a kid out of the deal, huh?”

John smirked. “It’s a conveniently coincidental name but no. It’s a reference to the statue by the front door.”

“Of?”

“Man carrying a lamb, one of Picasso’s. It always seemed a bit modernist and preachy to me for a whorehouse but to each his own.”

“What’s a place like that doing with a Picasso? Even I know that’s worth a lot of money.”

“Haven’t a clue. She runs a classy place. I don’t know what she did before but she can hold her own in the artspeak and no woman in Philly’s got more contacts.” John tapped the bill of sale on the counter. “If anyone knows something about this, it’d be her.”

He couldn’t show his face around The Bronze Lamb, not if he wanted to keep suspicions to a minimum, so Miles recruited a private to infiltrate the place for him. Somehow he didn’t think Private Wren was really that put out by the order from General Matheson to have a good time, as a thank you for his hard work directing a crew of Eastern State inmates in the clean-up of Penn’s Landing.

His only request was for a signed receipt from the madam, a Miss Elizabeth Hérisson, for the treasury. Miles almost had to laugh at what his old commanders would have thought of listing brothels in the budget but it kept the men happy. Until they got prudish at the turn of the century, even Americans used to know a whore had her place in war (and peace.)

A week after the granary fire, Miles sat at his desk in a worn t-shirt, three pieces of paper spread in front of him in the dim lamplight: Private Wren’s receipt, the Ollivers’ bill of sale and the Maquis pamphlet. The three pages bore three separate signatures, those of Elizabeth Hérisson, Barnabas Renfield and The Hedgehog. Now, Miles was no handwriting analyst and it didn’t help that they were three different names. But if he were to guess, based on the matching curl of the ‘e’s and the downstroke of the ‘b’ and ‘d’s, he’d have to say they were written by the same person.

Miles sighed, running a hand through his hair. So what did that mean, exactly? If Hérisson was the Hedgehog, he should arrest her on the spot. He glanced at his reflection in the dark window, thinking of Bass standing below as three of their men were shot without trial. Though he had yet to see this so called _Man with a Lamb_ statue Hérisson was supposedly so proud of, Miles thought maybe he got the point anyway.

 [](http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/57148.html)  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more visuals and information on this fic, visit my absurd nerdy research guide: http://carlier36.livejournal.com/4832.html


	3. The Gates of Hell, Auguste Rodin

Ten Years After the Blackout  
October

Miles pulled a grimace, remembering the taste of chalky, stringy coconut like it was just yesterday. “That was one of your worst cakes ever.”

“Coconut is not something-”

He felt the fine hair on the side of his face singe and curl up, felt the hard impact of concrete floor, almost before he heard the blast. Fire and shattered glass and bodies tore through the N. 3rd St. Tavern, throwing both men into tables like an unprovoked bar fight. Wooden chairs clattered and broke, splintering into a thousand pieces and slicing open his cheek.

Miles cracked his head on the concrete, brain all but rattling around in his skull. Though he could already feel the jagged pressure of fractured ribs and a sizzling burn on his face, he knew full well he’d had worse. Still, in the split seconds before he lost consciousness, Miles wondered for the fifty-eighth time what hell would look like.

John Ellis had told him once that the gates of hell stood on the Parkway, between the two wings of the Barnes. Miles thought he was being a smartass at first until Ellis pointed out the cobweb-covered bronze doors, shrouded in shadows and trees. The little building wasn’t of any use to the Militia, still packed with heavy sculptures, and too small to store much anyway, so Miles had never noticed the doors with their twisting tormented figures, disembodied faces and silent screams.

After, he wished he’d never noticed it at all, hadn’t wasted two hours of his day staring at it, wiping away the sticky cobwebs and helplessly committing to memory every face, every pain-stricken body. _Why would someone create such a horrible thing?_ he had wondered, only to shove the thought deep in the darkest part of his mind where he kept other questions like:

_Who could take a mother or father from their children and send them to their death?_

_Why would anyone lay waste to a city just because they can?_

_Who enjoys being feared?_

At the crucial moment of every near-death experience he’d had since then, Miles wondered if hell would really look like those Gates, like that Frenchman’s vision of purgatory.

The unconsciousness that inevitably followed was black and warm and if it weren’t for the flashes of mixed-up memory and hallucination, Miles almost wouldn’t have wanted to wake up. If he’d known what waited for him, he might not have chosen to wake up anyway.

Two nights after his disastrous thirty-ninth birthday, Miles lay in bed, hands folded on his chest and Nora asleep at his side.

Wide awake.

The fire was burnt low in the fireplace and the unobtrusive landscape that hung there was cast in deep shadow. The only light in the room came from a square of moonlight falling through the streaky glass window. Miles sighed, shooting a glance at Nora as he gingerly lifted the covers and slid out of bed.

Bare feet landed on cold hardwood and he hissed under his breath, holding his side. He was mostly just bruised, ego included, but the pain radiating from his ribs was almost enough to knock the wind out of him anyway. Miles took a moment to catch his breath, standing slowly and darting another look at Nora’s sleeping figure.

He straightened, searching out the familiar wool of his uniform in the dark. The table clattered as he bumped into it, reaching for his pants draped over a chair. By the time he had pulled his pants on, fumbled to lace up his boots and was shrugging on the long fall coat, Miles was almost certain he’d woken Nora up, though she hadn’t so much as shifted the blankets. An ineffectual silent protest, all the things she’d already said, restated without opening her mouth: _Why should you feel guilty for his actions? Why do you let him have the last word on everything?_

Stepping out into the hall, he shut the door behind him with a quiet click. Fingers poked at the butterflies trimming jagged cuts on his forehead and he winced, tugging his coat tighter around him. The stairs creaked under each footstep and he ground his teeth, slipping past the Liberty Bell in the hallway and out into the three a.m. chill.

Miles shoved his hands in his pockets, putting his head down and walking through the trees and unshorn grass that made up the remnants of Liberty Park. Liberty this, liberty that. The constant presence of early American ideals had always been a little like a gnat, buzzing in their ears. But after standing in the upstairs window and watching as a tiny coffin  passed by, draped in an ironic American flag-

He squeezed the bridge of his nose with stiff, bare fingers, trying in vain to will away the mental image. It didn’t work. Miles half-expected to end up outside those damn _Gates of Hell_ but after nearly an hour of intentionally aimless wandering, he found himself somewhere quite different: The Bronze Lamb. It was the first time he had actually stood there, outside the building, though he’d spent several weeks obsessing over the place.

It wasn’t entirely what he’d expected. Then again, Miles wasn’t entirely sure _what_ he expected. The place bordered on genteel with its ivy covered trees and brickwork, although the street wasn’t much to speak of. The eponymous bronze _Man with a Lamb_ stood at the base of a short flight of brick steps. They led to an unassuming chipped red door with mismatched trim and though (likely stained) curtains were drawn across the windows, they still winked with flickering candlelight.

It looked downright homey.

Miles had to scoff at such a ludicrous thought.

A homey whorehouse. It sounded like something out of a corny old Western.

He remembered suddenly that he’d always had a bit of a soft spot for corny old Westerns. Except this wasn’t Virginia City and the madam on the other side of that door wasn’t Miss Kitty. (He thought he might be mixing up his Westerns but, then, it had been a decade since he’d seen one.)

No, the madam on the other side of that appropriately red door was no hooker with a heart of gold. She was a ruthless anarchist who had destroyed three-quarters of the grain supply his men relied on to get them through winter. On some level, Miles had to admire her tactical strategy. She’d undermined them, weakened the entire Militia, with one brutal, perfectly timed strike.

Not to mention, she seemed to be funding her operation off the ignorant peacocks he called officers by selling them exorbitantly priced pieces of art she had likely stolen to begin with. _Salt in the wound, insult to injury, any of a number of clichés would work here,_ he thought.

So why, exactly, had he not sent troops to her door, torn apart her resistance and arrested her himself for high treason?

To be honest, Miles really couldn’t say. Morbid curiosity? Self-aggrandizing with a side of self-loathing, the compulsive desire to know someone out there hated him as much as he hated himself? _The Gates of Hell_ flashed in his head again and Miles sighed audibly, breath visible in the night air.

He marched up the short steps, lifting a cold fist to rap on the door. It swung open to a tall blond in a sequined number that had seen better days but still managed to hug the right curves.

Her eyes widened and she stepped back, wobbling slightly on high heels. “General Matheson!” she exclaimed, loud enough, no doubt, that the other girls could make themselves presentable and whatever rebel crooks were hanging around could make themselves scarce. Miles almost rolled his eyes at the girl’s fumble. “ _Please_ , come in.” He stepped in past her, nodding his silent, scowling thanks.

There was a flurry of activity and hushed whispers but by the time he walked into the main room, six or seven girls were laid out on couches in that blasé come-hither of the common hooker. He glanced around the room, with its slightly tattered rugs and the practically wall-to-wall art.

A large canvas of an almost obscenely nude woman by the water with white stockings clinging to her calves.

An oval painting of a quirky little woman on a bed with her hair piled up and her arms tucked behind her head.

One from behind, dressed only in a hat, fur and red thigh-highs, like he hadn’t seen in ten years.

Miles shook his head to clear it, standing there in the entry with his hands in his pockets, brow furrowed. Somehow he felt more awkward than he had with the stripper in Fort Lauderdale. Yes, yes, the one with one leg. Somebody flicked the needle onto a Victrola and the ragged strains of some 1912 polka drifted out from the corner.

He was thinking this was a bad idea and maybe he’d just ruined his chance to catch the Maquis red-handed. But about that time, someone cleared their throat to his left and he turned on his heel, eyes narrowing at the tiny brunette standing there with big green eyes and a hand placed above her head on the door frame.

“General Matheson. What an honor.” She nudged the door further open behind her with her foot, gesturing into the room. “Won’t you let me show you the officers’ special?”

Miles straightened his shoulders. “You must be this Hérisson I’ve heard so much about.”

“Ellie.” She shrugged. “But, sure.” Turning, she disappeared into what he assumed was a bedroom, or an office, and Miles followed, feeling the stares of half a dozen hookers on his back before the door shut on them.

There was a large desk, almost as big as the monstrosity Bass liked to drag around on campaigns, flanked by two plush leather chairs and a colorful orange and purple painting of yet another naked woman on a couch. So, office then.

“Officers’ special, huh? So you market your… product, to the Militia boys?”

“You could say that.” Ellie stepped around behind the desk, neatly pressed trousers swishing against her thighs as she snatched two tumblers and a bottle of whiskey from the windowsill. Tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear, she smacked both glasses on the desk and poured them a third full.

Miles lifted one of them without an invitation, sinking into a chair, coat splayed around his legs. Taking a sip of the bitter, burning alcohol, (not great quality, but then, what did he really expect from a whorehouse, even one with a Picasso out front), he gestured to the painting behind her desk. “Lot of nudes.”

Sitting across from him, she leaned back in her chair, wrists dangling off the arm rests, and arched an eyebrow. “It’s a whorehouse.”

Miles hid a smirk in his glass, letting the room grow quiet for long, almost comfortable seconds.

“So what brings you to our door, General?”

“What makes you think I’m not just here for sex and booze?”

“Generals don’t need whorehouses. They have their own whores. And their own houses.”

Ellie leaned forward onto the desk, a near-ancient ink blotter rumpling under her arms. “No, you’re here for something else. You read a book about an enlightened hooker, or something, and came for wisdom. Or maybe you’ve got a guilty conscience about, well any number of things, really, and you’ve come for therapy.”

Nearly choking on his whiskey, he sputtered until he felt his face must be red (and his nose purple, though that was likely from more than one night of drinking.) He suppressed the urge to tell her _most people don’t talk to me like that_ or _you forget who you’re talking to, Miss H_ _érisson_ , the words only sounding like Bass in his head.

“I know, I know, I’ve got _some_ nerve. Unluckily for you, none of those things are on the menu around here. You want to talk about sex? You want to talk about art? I can help. Otherwise, I’m afraid this is a dead end.”

“What about politics, Miss Hérisson?” A loaded question and he figured they both knew it.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s impolite to discuss politics and religion?”

“But not sex?”

“Oh, no, never sex.” She smirked and he laughed in spite of himself. 

Miles ran a hand through his hair, too long strands falling over his fingers. He needed a haircut, Bass had been saying so for weeks. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really know why I’m here. Just couldn’t sleep.”

“The Bronze Lamb is an awfully long walk from Independence Hall in the middle of the night, in the cold.”

“Thought you said you didn’t offer therapy.”

“I don’t.”

Miles glanced down into his whiskey, swishing the muddy liquid from side to side. “Just a little shaken up, I guess. From the bombing. Not back on my feet yet.” It seemed impressively stupid to admit such a thing to the leader of the resistance group who would undoubtedly file away his weaknesses for use at a later time. But for once in his life, he couldn’t seem to stop himself talking. “Gettin’ old. We both are.”

“You and President Monroe.”

He nodded without looking up. “Yeah. Bass. We grew up together, you know.”

“I’d heard that.” Ellie’s voice sounded soft, kind of thick, as if she were emotional but when he glanced at her face, she was even and composed. She folded small hands on the desk, holding his gaze. “It’s hard. To see the people we knew- before- change. Like a switch was flipped in them that night too.”

Miles had never heard it put that way and it wasn’t exactly true. Bass had changed slowly, starting before the Blackout even. But something about the way she said it, the way her eyes turned flat for a moment, rang unbearably true.

“Speaking from experience?”

She shook her head, lips pressed together in a thin, out-of-place smile. “No. I have no family, no one from before.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ellie cocked her head, staring at him. “I think you really are.”

“Not actually a heartless Frankenstein, whatever you’ve heard.”

She lifted the whiskey to her lips, shrugging slightly, in disagreement or dismissal he wasn’t sure. “Depends. Do we consider Frankenstein a genius or a butcher?”

The word, that damn name, made bile or venom rise in his throat and his nostrils flared, hand gripping the glass tighter. When he looked up at her, her mouth was twisted into the faintest of smirks and he realized the word choice had been deliberate. She was just poking at his scars, determining where his limits were.

She’d probably be great in an interrogation.

While he was still off balance, staring at her, she stood and moved around the desk towards him. For a moment he thought she was going to kiss him or proposition him or maybe stab him to death right there in her office. It was almost a letdown when she only took his glass and set it on the blotter, leaning both hands back against the wooden edge.

“Go home, General. Go home to your girl. And your brother. You never know when things could change forever.”

It could have been a threat. Sort of sounded like one. He wasn’t sure. _The Gates of Hell_ didn’t flash before his eyes though so he figured it didn’t count as a near-death experience.

Miles pushed himself up out of the chair, eyeing the unfinished whiskey just behind her. “Thanks, for the drink.” His eyes lifted to her face, cataloging the small beauty mark on her left cheek and the very beginnings of crow’s feet at her eyes.

She nodded, polite, and he pulled his coat around him, moving for the door. He was all but gone when he heard the slightest of sighs behind him, that feminine shifting of fabric.

“General?” He turned, fingers wrapped around the doorknob to find her right at his side, arms folded over her chest.

“I know I said I don’t offer wisdom, but- Matisse,” she gestured to the painting behind her desk, “He said that truth and reality aren’t possible until you no longer understand what you’re doing. That such virtues sense a power within you that grows in proportion to your resistance to them. He was talking about art but I always thought it applied to more than that.”

Again, he wasn’t entirely certain that wasn’t a threat. But it brought a small smile to the corners of his eyes and he reached out a hand, rough fingers closing around her forearm. Too tight.

Maybe a threat of his own. Maybe not.

“You know, it’s interesting. _H_ _érisson._ It means hedgehog.”

“You speak French.” It wasn’t exactly a question but she didn’t really look like she believed it either.

“No. Bass, he, uh, dated a French girl, long time ago. That’s what she used to call him. You know,” Miles lifted his free hand to gesture at the top of his head, “because of the curls. I guess. Or else it meant something dirty I didn’t want to know about.”

“Charming.”

They stood there for what felt like hours, locked in a stare until she smirked and glanced away. In anyone else it would have been an acquiescence of her own lack of power. And yet somehow he felt like he’d been the one to blink.

“G’night, General. _Bonne chance._ ”

He wondered what that meant all the way home.

 [](http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/103360.html?mulR=983555759%7C120)  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other works referenced are Gustave Courbet's Woman with White Stockings, Vincent van Gogh's Reclining Nude, Georges Rouault's Girl I - Rear View with Red Stockings and Henri Matisse's Reclining Nude, all of which reside at the Barnes Foundation.
> 
> For more visuals and information on this fic, visit my absurd nerdy research guide: http://carlier36.livejournal.com/4832.html


	4. Boy with Toy Soldiers, Antonio Mancini

Ten Years After the Blackout  
October

For all intents and purposes, the outside of the Philadelphia Athenaeum, a three-story stone building only a few blocks from Independence Hall, looked caught somewhere between ‘abandoned building’ and ‘bureaucratic prison’ and, truly, that’s exactly what it was. There was always a guard stationed outside the impressive double doors, flanked by two defunct lampposts, but no one, the guard included, knew what he was guarding. Three times a week, a young woman stepped out the front door first thing in the morning and returned with groceries and other supplies from the markets. Almost no one else ever came or went.

But on occasion, Generals Matheson or Monroe would drop by, their black coaches parked outside for perhaps an hour, perhaps two. Miles stepped out of his coach on one such visit, three days since his nightcap with Ellie Hérisson and four since the bombing at the tavern. The guard saluted him and he mumbled some kind of half-polite greeting as he drew a ring of keys from his pocket. Turning one in the latch, he let himself in, flicking the lock shut behind him.

“General?” Miles turned towards the voice to find the maid who fetched the groceries each week standing in the entry, hands in her pockets. “We weren’t expecting you, sir.”

“Cara.” A small smile tugged at the corners of his eyes; it felt ineffective and he dropped it faster than he’d thought to try it, running a hand through his hair. “I know. Where is she?”

She gestured above their heads to the second story. “Upstairs, by the veranda.”

Miles nodded shortly, making his way for the overly elaborate staircase but stopping with his hand on the rail. “ _How_ is she?”

Cara pulled her lip in between her teeth, shrugging a shoulder. “She’s lonely. We keep each other company but- as screwed up as it is, I think she missed you, sir. It’s been a long time.”

Almost two months since he’d visited. He had figured she would be happier _not_ seeing him, her jailer, but Cara was right: it had been _too_ long. “Has he been here?”

She looked away, shoulders squaring. “Once, a couple days ago.”

“After the bombing?”

Nodding once, she glanced up at him. “He came in alone, but Sergeant Strausser was waiting for him outside in the coach.” Cara’s eyes narrowed, arms crossing over her chest. “I don’t like that man.”

Miles’ jaw clenched, his hand tightening on the stair rail. “Nobody does. Thank you, Cara.”

“Of course, sir.” Her footsteps echoed down the hall and he rubbed a hand over his face. Miles had been the one to bring Cara in for this job, an outsider with no desire to work her way up in the Militia, someone he could trust to keep their mouth shut. He supposed she probably reported to Bass on his movements as well but Bass knew full well she preferred Miles: bringing Strausser to the Athenaeum had been a message, a message for _him_.

Marching up the stairs, garish marble pillars rising far above his head, Miles made for the main hall. Before the Blackout, the Athenaeum was a library and after, it had been more or less abandoned. Aside from evidence of a few squatters and a silk-ton of cobwebs, the building had appeared all but untouched when the Militia arrived in Philadelphia. And so it had stayed for three more years, useless to them until suddenly they had need of a prison, a prison for a special prisoner.

Eastern State Penitentiary was for thieves, the firing squad for deserters. Neither was the appropriate fate for a secret political hostage (did that make sense? Could politics be secret? Miles didn’t think he knew enough about secrets _or_ politics to say.)

Let alone a family member.

Miles walked into the main hall, yellow walls in need of a paint job but warm and welcoming nonetheless. Far at the other end of the room, Rachel sat by the windows, a book propped up on her knees and bare feet tucked beneath her on the green chaise. Mid-afternoon sunlight streamed through the blond waves around her face, the book stacks stretching long shadows across the floor between them.

 “Good afternoon, General,” she murmured without looking up when he was close enough to hear.

Miles snatched the teapot off the table, pouring a splash into a cup and filling the rest with whiskey from the flask in his coat pocket. _General._ It sounded like a curse word when she said it.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He ground his teeth, darting a glance at her. “I need your opinion.”

“Mmm. About?” It wasn’t unheard of. He came to her for advice now and then; Bass probably did too. If it didn’t have to do with the power, Rachel was fairly accommodating. She seemed to think (know) she had the upper hand with them both, as unbalanced as that seemed.

“A woman.”

Rachel’s head shot up from her book, a rather disdainful grin splitting her face. “You’re joking, right?”

“No I’m not _joking_.”

She snapped the book shut, standing from the window seat and walking towards him. “So, I don’t see you for… what? Six weeks? And when you do finally turn up, you want _my_ advice about your _love life?_ ”

“What? No! She’s a hooker!”

That might not have been the right thing to say because Rachel’s eyebrows only shot up even higher. “Because that’s so much better!”

“No, no, she’s not _my_ hooker. She’s-” Miles groaned, stepping around her to stare out onto the overgrown veranda, arms crossed with the teacup clenched in one hand. “I don’t know what to do, Rach, and- and you always do. Know what to do, I mean.”

She seemed to realize he was serious, setting her book on the table and sliding a hand onto his shoulder. Miles swallowed hard at her closeness, hip cocked so she leaned into him, the hunter green of his uniform a stark contrast to her soft white blouse. “Who is she?” Rachel asked softly, head tilted, eyes bright and questioning.

He glanced down at her free hand, fingertips just brushing his sleeve, tentative. Rolling his wrist, he drew the pads of his fingers over her palm. “Her name’s Elizabeth Hérisson. You’ve heard of the Hedgehog and the Maquis?”

Rachel’s eyes darted to the floorboards, her body stilling against his for a moment before she nodded. “Yes, I think so. Rebels or something?”

“Or something,” he muttered under his breath. “They were responsible for the granary fire.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, thumb stroking over the back of his hand. “Do you know who the Maquis were, historically?”

“They were somebody?”

Rachel’s lips twitched but she didn’t call him out on his indifference. “They were one of the groups of civilian resistance fighters in occupied France during World War II. One of the most famous Maquis was a woman named Madame Fourcade. She called herself the Hedgehog.”

He stared at her for several long heartbeats before it registered. “She’s comparing us to _Nazis?_ ” Bad enough to require a resistance, maybe. But _Nazis?_ That seemed a little extreme.“How do you know all this?”

She cocked her head to the side, blinking up at him with those big, blue unnerving eyes. “Miles. I’ve been trapped in a library for three years. I think I’ve read every book ever written.”

He flinched at the pointed comment, glancing down at his shoes so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Fair enough.”

Rachel tugged on his arm, pulling him over to sit on the chaise. Tucking her legs under her, she drummed her fingers against his chest. “What’s this really about, Miles? If you know who the Hedgehog is, why haven’t you arrested her?”

Catching her hand in his, he squeezed, probably too hard. She squeezed back just as fierce and he lifted their hands to his mouth, not quite kissing the delicate skin stretched over her bones. The room was quiet as he thought about it, or maybe more accurately, tried not to.

“Bass killed a couple of kids,” he confessed finally. His voice sounded raspy and he clenched his hand tighter around the teacup, chipped porcelain feeling impossibly fragile under his rough grip, as though he could crush it like an empty can.

“He told me all about it.” Rachel straightened away from him, drawing her hand back. He couldn’t blame her.

Miles could only imagine what Bass had said to her that day, with Strausser waiting outside. “And before that it was the guards from the granary and before that it was something else. He’s losing it, Rachel.”

“He lost it a long time ago. You’re just too attached to be able to see it.” Miles shot her a familiar, warning glare and she yanked on a hangnail, refusing to look up at him. “So what are you saying? That you support this _Elizabeth Hérisson_?”

“ _No._ She’d probably kill me if she had the chance; definitely him.”

“Is that really… true, though? _Has_ she had the chance?” It was a strange question but flashing back to his drink with Ellie a few nights earlier, he knew she was right. She could have slipped arsenic in his whiskey or, for that matter, a knife between his ribs at any time.

“She might have cost dozens of men their lives this winter, or their family’s lives, because we’ve got no _grain_ ,” Miles protested anyway.

“Did you want my advice or not?”

“If you’re going to tell me to betray my brother, then no.” Miles realized his mistake as soon as he lifted his head, her jaw clenched and her glare flat. He sighed, tongue darting out over his lips. Ben always had the worst timing, rearing his head where he had no business being. “If you’re going to tell me to betray _Bass_ , then no.”

“You’re General Miles Matheson,” Rachel snapped, flicking an imaginary bit of dust from his uniform. “You think something’s wrong? _Fix it._ You promised to protect people. So for once, Miles? Keep your promise.”

She got to her feet, marching out of the long hall, footsteps echoing. Miles tossed back his tea/whiskey and slammed the cup down on the table. Everything in the Athenaeum had a goddamn echo.

\---

Miles sat in the dark, legs stretched out on Bass’ bed, boots still on. It was rude of him, probably. Ice cubes rattled in his almost empty glass, head tipped back against the brass headboard.

The President’s bedroom was a stately place, with its arched ceiling and shuttered windows. The Declaration of Independence had been signed there, supposedly. Better than that, though, was the freshly unwrapped painting hanging over one of the fireplaces, a sad-looking kid playing with toy soldiers.

Bass said he was trying it out, that it had been delivered wrapped in brown paper and one of the privates signed for it, without getting the name of the sender or even the delivery service. (He had been promptly reassigned to a less important job. Miles was just grateful they hadn’t executed him.)

Miles glared at the painted kid with his ridiculous starched collar, not having to wonder too hard where it had come from. The painting seemed to point out all their flaws in one go, all their enemies’ arguments, but Bass always did have a flair for irony. If only he knew he was accepting gifts from the Hedgehog.

He’d been sitting there for close to an hour, nursing his drink, by the time Bass walked in and latched the door behind him. Miles knew Bass was well aware of his presence, but neither of them said a word until he had stripped out of his jacket, hung it neatly by the door and lit the hurricane lamp on the desk.

“Don’t you have your own room you can mope in?” he asked from the dresser, loosening the button at his throat.

“You went to see Rachel.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah but I didn’t take _Strausser_ with me.”

Bass turned to sit on the edge of the bed, eyebrow raised and mouth twisted into a rueful grimace as he bent to unlace his boots. “I see Cara’s dutifully reported. As if we didn’t know where her loyalty lay.”

Miles watched him kick his boots aside and untuck his shirt. He lifted the empty glass from his hand, ignoring Miles’ grunted protest, and refilled it from the decanter on the nightstand. Filling one for himself, Bass sank back against the brass headboard and handed the glass over with a groan. The alcohol barely even burned his throat he’d had so much; Bass pressed the glass tumbler to his forehead, condensation slicking off onto his skin, eyes dropping shut.

“You let him lay a finger on her, Bass,” he said finally, “I swear to god, you won’t know what hit you.”

“Cara?” Like he didn’t know.

“ _Rachel_.”

Bass sighed, rolling his shoulders to look at Miles, blue eyes bright in the dim room. “She’s been here for three years. The situation’s never gonna change if we don’t do something.”

And wasn’t that just perfect? Miles ran a hand over his face, ignoring Rachel’s words practically parroted at him for the second time that day. _Do something. Fix it._

“I’m _not-_ ” Miles stammered, gesturing wildly so a few drops of alcohol splashed out onto the comforter. “You can’t just torture my sister-in-law!”

“Yeah, you’d be upset about it ‘cause she’s your _sister-in-law_.”

“Don’t- _Don’t_ go there, Bass. This is not about that. It’s- she’s- _Rachel_. You can’t just-”

“Look at yourself, man. You can’t even put a sentence together when it comes to her. We should have sicced Strausser on her a long time ago. If we had power, we’d have squashed Texas last year. Hell, we’d probably be halfway to California by now.”

“So, what? You stick Rachel full of holes down in some basement somewhere, so we can get more _land?_ We can barely handle what we’ve got now.”

Bass scoffed, mumbling some token retort. That’s what they’d been reduced to: lying two feet apart on a bed, alcohol and Rachel between them. Then again, that didn’t sound that different than the last twenty years. They sat there in the dark for another ten minutes, not looking at each other.

“I can’t let you hurt her. I won’t.” He sounded like a broken record, even to himself.

“Jesus, Miles. Why’re you so fixated on this? She hasn’t responded to honey; it’s time for vinegar.” He made it sound so simple. It was anything but simple. It was _Rachel._ “It doesn’t really matter how you feel about  her. She’s a source of information and that is all.”

“How can you say that?” Miles demanded, throwing his hands up. “You- You got wasted at her wedding and slept with the maid of honor. You used to play with her kids. You-”

“Yeah and _you_ got wasted at her wedding for other reasons. Shit, Miles, this isn’t _true love_ ; it isn’t some goddamn fairytale. You got to let her go.” Bass swung his legs off the bed to strike a match, tossing it on one of the already prepared fireplaces.

“ _No,_ Bass, she is my _family_. We’re never gonna find Ben and the kids. She’s all I got left.”

He stilled, hand clenched into a tight fist at his side, the other braced against the grey-green wall, the kid with the toy soldiers staring blankly out over his head. “Excuse me?”

Miles winced, standing and pacing across the room. Bass was family, of course Bass was family. Right? _Does family kill a bunch of kids as a fucking get well present?_ Then again, _does family fall in love with the smart, gorgeous blonde Ben brought home at Thanksgiving?_  “I mean blood.”

“Rachel’s not blood. She’s the sister-in-law you _banged_ fifteen years ago.”

“Didn’t I say _don’t go there?_ ” he snarled, hand tightening on his glass.

“ _You_ went there! Is that the problem here? Are you still doing her? Is she whispering in your ear now? She always did have you twisted up around her little finger!” He took a dangerous step forward, eyes narrowed, and Miles paced a little closer.

“ _No-_ How can you ask me that? I have been nothing but loyal to this whole goddamn Republic of yours!”

“Of _mine?_ All I ever did was add the _trappings._ ” Bass gestured around the room, the room that said _George Washington_ and _the pursuit of happiness_ , not Matheson and Monroe on the warpath.The uniforms, the hall, the flags, it was all Bass. “ _You_ took Philadelphia, and Trenton and _Baltimore-_ ”

“Like you weren’t right there with me the whole time!”

“And I’d stand by you into _hell,_ Miles. I _did_ , in fact, and I never fucked the enemy while we were there!”

Miles realized, objectively, that their racket was probably going to draw the cavalry at any time now but the glass slipped out of his hand before he could think about it, shattering on the hardwood with a crash. His sword was still lying in its sheath on the table and it wasn’t like he wanted to _kill_ him anyway, so Miles only resorted to his fists, fingers twisting in Bass’ shirt and knuckles connecting with his jaw.

They stumbled backwards into the bed, broken glass scattering wildly under their feet, before the door burst open. Nora and Jeremy tumbled into the room, three privates at their backs and lanterns swinging violently. She groaned, running a hand through her hair and tugging a thin robe tighter around her as Jeremy lunged forward, tearing them apart. “Son of a _bitch!_ ”

Nora hissed at the freshly minted (or freshly branded, anyway) privates, shooing them out and slamming the door before whirling on them. “We about thought _Georgia_ was invading! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Bass leaned against the footboard, wincing and rubbing at the bruise blossoming on his jaw. Miles wrenched out of Jeremy’s grip and dusted himself off, glass crunching under his boots.

“Keep Strausser away from her. I mean it, Bass.” Nora held up a hand to try and stop him, a fierce glare set on her small features. “I’m-I’m sorry. Got to clear my head,” he mumbled, brushing past her.

The privates in the hall snapped to attention in spite of his scowl. Just before the front door slammed behind him, he heard Bass order Jeremy to put an extra detail on the Athenaeum. Bastard.

[ ](http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/283507.html)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very curious what you guys think about this chapter because I struggled with it greatly the last two weeks. This era is so rough between Miles and Bass, with both of them in the wrong on the political front and neither of them exactly in the wrong on the personal front. They're both hurting and not understanding what the other is thinking or what they want and, as we know, it leads to nothing good.
> 
> Also, in regards to Rachel: my theory is that the boys just don't really know what to do with her at this point. They can't get anything out of her, not without resorting to the extreme measures that Bass uses later on (which, also as we know, never really worked anyway until Danny was part of the equation) and so she just rattles around in her gilded cage, waiting for them to pay her a visit. But don't worry! Rachel's got some agency in my head-canon, so just hold out for chapter 5, which is on its way soon...
> 
> For more visuals and information on this fic, visit my absurd nerdy research guide: http://carlier36.livejournal.com/4832.html


	5. Girl with Birdcage, Paul Cezanne

Halfway across the city, Miles was wishing he had thought to grab his coat or a pair of gloves. October was quickly waning and it wasn’t like he could catch a cab. For that matter, there was no point denying to himself where he was headed, not when it was that cold. The Bronze Lamb had been haunting him for days and _that_ day had been one headlong rush towards its doors.

He glared at the Picasso with its rough edges and blank, protruding eyes on his way up the steps. Throwing the red door open, he grunted at the girls frozen in shock (or mid-transaction) and stormed into Ellie’s office. The door all but bounced off its hinges, he slammed it so hard. Ellie lifted her head, not even flinching in surprise at his violent entrance.

“General. How did President Monroe like my gift?”

Almost before she finished speaking, Miles was dragging her up out of the chair, hands tight and rough on her shoulders. He thrust her up against the wall, crowded her into the painting there (what had she said? Matisse?) “I want you gone, do you understand me?” he growled. “Out of this city and _gone_.”

“General, I-”

Miles’ hand came up to her throat without even thinking. “ _Gone_.” His grip tightened around her slender neck and she gasped, hand flying up to pry at his fingers.

“What- Where is this- coming from?” Ellie squeezed her eyes shut, choking out the question when she could have just focused on struggling for air.

It was all too goddamn familiar. Miles tore away, sinking into her chair and pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. “They’re my- _family._ I can’t-”

She coughed into her hand, clearing her throat before he felt her crouch in front of him, hands sliding onto his knees. “General?” He didn’t respond so she reached for his wrists, drawing his hands away from his face. “Miles.” Her voice was slightly rough and he felt a belated flash of guilt. “Hey. What’s this all about?”

“I know what you do here.”

Ellie’s lips twitched. “Well I should certainly hope you understand the mechanics of it.”

Lifting his head, he all but rolled his eyes before rephrasing. “I know that you’re funding a resistance with the art.”

She sat back on her heels, nodding slightly. “Ah.” They sat in silence for a beat, his eyes slanted down at the way she chewed on her lip, “You know, the Blackout didn’t just ruin lives. Some of us, it made into people we never could have been before. It made a rather cliché coal miner’s daughter into the leader of the new Maquis. It made a Marine sergeant from Indiana into general of half the East Coast. But that was never what you wanted, was it?”

He didn’t quite care that she knew where he was from, knew what his rank had been, personal details Bass always played close to the vest. He grunted, eyeing the bottle of cheap whiskey on the windowsill but didn’t make a move for it. Ellie in turn, eyed _him_ but didn’t make a move either. Of the two of them, although her poker face was probably better, Miles was the more likely to remain stationary indefinitely.

“So you’re _not_ going to arrest me for treason?” she asked finally.

Miles shook his head, voice stilted when he did eventually respond. “Not- right now.”

“Then I want to show you something.” She slid her hand into his, small and pale but not delicate, and rose to her feet, tugging him up with her.

He let her pull him up, eyes dropping to her throat, his fingerprints quickly turning the same color as Matisse’s purple roses. “Sorry. About that.”

Ellie glanced down at herself, though she’d have to twist in the mirror to see them, her fingertips skating over the line of her throat. “Believe me, I’ve had worse.” It didn’t seem to bother her.

He wondered why it bothered him, when it had taken two weeks of staring at his handprint on Rachel’s throat to feel the first stab of guilt for it. Snatching a silk scarf off the chair, she wound it one-handed around her neck and led him out of the office.

The girls and their customers didn’t seem to pay them any mind though he ducked his head to the wall anyway, just in case. No sense in any of this getting back to Bass, his carrying on with a madam with an IQ higher than both of them put together and a penchant for stolen art. Not to mention her more treasonous habits. The hallway to the back of the building was narrow and lined with paintings, things that didn’t seem to make any sense together, and yet it all seemed uniquely her, like she had her fingerprints on all of it, even if it had been painted a hundred years before she was born.

“You know, when the Blackout happened, I was nobody,” she was saying when he started paying attention again. “My family had six generations of soot and ash and cave-ins in Claysville and they disapproved of me coming to the city. But I wasn’t going to be like them. I was going to go to college and work in a big, fancy museum.”

Ellie scoffed slightly as she drew a set of keys from her pocket, unlocking the door at the end of the hall. “After three years in the city, I still barely made enough money to pay my rent each month.” She shook her head, looking less wistful than disgruntled, and he could understand that. Miles was often disgruntled over his pre-Blackout choices, over the things he did and the things he never had a chance to. Usually, when he was so drunk he couldn’t remember the next day what he’d told Rachel.

She lifted a small lantern off the wall and, on autopilot, he offered a match from his coat pocket. The light bounced and swung in her hand as she led him down a narrow flight of stairs to another door, another key. “I still loved the art though and I used to walk across town every Monday to the Barnes. People would line up for hours trying to get in but I knew a guy on the security staff, Josh, and he’d always let me in the back. I never could have afforded to go every week otherwise. That night-”

Ellie bit her lip, passing him the lantern so she could unlock the door. “They were open late that night. Must have been a party or an opening or something, I don’t really remember.” She glanced up at him, the key scraping in the lock. She pushed open the door to reveal another flight of stairs. It was a primitive security system but smart, really. Even if someone got in the top door, they’d have to contend with several other locks in a tight, narrow space. Their odds of getting down to the basement without getting caught were practically zero.

“Anyway. When the lights went out and then we heard the planes falling, everybody scattered. But I didn’t have anyone to rush home to. So I just stayed. Lived in the museum for three days on matches and vending machine food. Well. We all have our stories from those days.”

Stuck on base with a bunch of anxiety-ridden Marines looking for a fight. Yeah, everyone had a story.

Finally, when Miles felt like they had to be a thousand feet underground, the air stale, she pushed open the last door to a room that seemed to be the basements of The Bronze Lamb and two or three surrounding buildings, haphazard doors knocked out of the walls. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dim shadows cast by rows and stacks and piles of art.

“Welcome to the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” Ellie announced, dry as ever. “It’s not the best place for it, not exactly temperature-controlled, but it’s a hell of a lot safer than it was topside.”

“Jesus. You could fund a whole goddamn revolution with this,” he breathed. The Barnes and the other museums weren’t exactly shacks, but somehow seeing all of it packed into a basement was more overwhelming than he’d expected. He shot her a sidelong glance. “Why haven’t you?”

“A revolution takes more than money and pitchforks.”

“It takes someone on the inside.” Miles felt his chest seize up, lungs tight and clenching with guilt, or maybe denial. As if that wasn’t exactly why he was there to begin with.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Trust me. I already know people on the inside.” She brushed past him, fingers skimming the edges of frames.

“So how many of my men _are_ traitors?”

“None of them. Don’t be so narrow-minded.”

“Why are you showing me all of this?”

Ellie shrugged a shoulder. That was probably the biggest lie of the night: in their few short meetings, he had come to know everything she did had a purpose, a carefully thought out endgame. Miles wasn’t really sure who she reminded him of, but she always made him feel like he was getting played.

“How did you get it all down here?” he asked, switching tactics.

“Getting it down here was the easy part. Getting it out of the museums was a different story. Josh, the security guard, he came looking for me a few days after the Blackout. I don’t know what made him think of me; those first few months, seemed like nobody really cared about anyone else. He did though, and there I was refusing to leave the museum because I was terrified what would happen to the art.”

Ellie paused to laugh, leaning against the cracked and battered wall. The lantern cast yellow shadows over her face and when she smiled, she looked caught in an old sepia photograph. “Josh was the last nice guy in the world, I think. His uncle was a professional fisherman and a hell of a quick thinker. He’d already swapped out the mechanical elements on two of his boats, repurposed them for rowers.

“It was anarchy in the cities, you know, but people still had to eat and fish was good as anything. Capitalism meets the apocalypse. Anyway, every night for a week, we loaded the boats up with canvases, a few sculptures, and took them out down the river.”

He probably should have asked what happened to Josh, how she ended up running a brothel, why Brandywine St and how they got from the rivers to the city center. For that matter, why the ‘Maquis’ and what they did to her that required mounting a resistance.

She didn’t seem eager to push him for the questions though, and there was an eeriness down there he couldn’t shake, couldn’t make himself speak through. Like all those stacked canvases were just waiting for the lights to flicker back on, waiting to be hung on a museum wall again. Like a time capsule trapped in a future that looked more like the past.

Miles lifted the lantern higher, squinting at painted figures, dancers, lovers, landscapes, birds, horses, a thousand things that meant something more to Ellie than they could ever mean to him.

She knelt in front of one of the largest pieces, propped against the length of the far wall. Garishly colored and extravagant somehow; she reached a hand out, fingertips skimming the paint. Inexplicably, Miles thought of a fifth grade field trip to the museum where he had been continually scolded for trying to touch everything. “These are the pieces I can’t part with.”

Her lips tipped into a smile that for once didn’t seem to hint at something; rather, it was simply sad. He almost could have sworn he heard tears in her voice but, to be honest, he wasn’t listening that closely. A painting stuck out of a stack and he drew it out slowly, holding the lantern up.

A blond woman in a window, wrought iron bars nearly blending into her dress, and her hand raised to a small bird in a birdcage. It was rough, felt unfinished somehow, like he was looking at the colorful shadows of some forgotten model.

But of all the art he couldn’t understand, it reached out, it grabbed him, and he couldn’t imagine why. Miles swallowed hard over a knot in his throat, fingers clenching into a fist at his side.

Ellie appeared at his elbow, his silence apparently more obvious than usual. “Ah, Cezanne,” she murmured, identifying the painting without explanation. “Not one of his better works, really, but I always liked the implicit metaphor of those birdcage pieces.”

“I-” Miles stumbled over the words, jaw clenching, “like it.”

She squeezed his arm and he could feel her smile without looking. “Art speaks to everyone, General. Even you.”

“It’s- Don’t know. Reminds me of someone I… _used_ to know. Somebody… trapped.”

Ellie stilled, her stare wide and impossible to ignore on the rough stubble of his cheek. He glanced down at her, their faces almost obscured in shadow with the lantern clutched in his hand below them.

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathed, and he thought that might be sympathy in her eyes. “How did I miss that?”

“What?” Miles demanded.

“You’re in love with her.”

“ _What?_ In love with who?” He supposed she could have meant, should have meant, Nora. But everyone, especially Nora, knew that wasn’t true. He wondered why she stayed. Maybe she loved him more than she cared if he loved her back. That was ridiculous though, right?

“Rachel Matheson.”

Miles almost dropped the lantern and the thought crossed his mind that she ought to be damn proud of herself: not a lot of people could say they had startled General Miles Matheson. “How- _Shit._ How do you know about Rachel?” His fingers closed around her arm, stepping into the narrow space between them.

“Oh Miles.” Ellie reached out to gently pry the lantern from his grip. “Come on, sit down. I think there’s something you need to know.”

She sank down with her back to the door, tugging insistently on his hand until he slid to the floor beside her, the lantern discarded at their feet. “I had no idea. She never-” Ellie ran a hand through her hair, sucking in a deep breath. “I don’t even know where to start, really, it’s-”

“Start at the beginning,” Miles growled, glaring at her, his anger quieter but more fierce than when he’d wrapped a hand around her throat earlier that night.

“I suppose it started when you hired Cara Hart.”

“ _Cara?_ ”

“She’s an old friend; we used to waitress at the same diner, before the Blackout. It was a fluke, really. When we decided she would try to get a job with the Republic, our best hope was that she’d end up in housekeeping for Independence Hall but it wasn’t a long-term plan. Eventually, you’d realize someone was listening in. But, instead, you hired her for Rachel. No one even knew she existed.”

“They still don’t. Or they aren’t supposed to.” Miles squeezed his eyes shut. Rachel was a ghost in the system. Not real. It was easier that way. If she wasn’t real, none of it mattered. He was crazy and she was the ghost in his head and that made it all okay.

_Seven Years After the Blackout_

_“So remember we thought we were shit out of luck?” Cara announced, flopping down in the chair across from Ellie’s desk and eyeing the Matisse._

_She lifted her head from the expense ledger, eyebrow raised. “We’re not?”_

_“Not in the slightest. It seemed strange to me that General Matheson would personally hire a maid, let alone for a random government building all the way across the park. And it_ is _strange, but for a different reason: because it’s not a random government building.”_

_“So what is it?”_

_“The Philadelphia Athenaeum is currently an abandoned library. But as of tomorrow, it becomes a prison.”_

_Ellie sighed. “Spit it out, Cara. Get to the punchline.”_

_“General Matheson’s sister-in-law, Rachel, is coming into town. And he doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here because it’s not a social call: she’s officially a political prisoner of the Monroe Republic.”_

_She stammered, brushing the ledger aside in favor of far more interesting conversation. “_ Why? _Who is she? What did she do before the Blackout?”_

 _“No idea. I’ve been briefed on my duties as maid, warden and companion but that’s about it. Prisoners get interrogated though, and it’s not going to be safe, or inconspicuous, to move her so they’re going to be coming and going, you know they are. She’s going to know things about them_ no one _knows. It’s-” Cara laughed in disbelief. “It’s a goddamn goldmine.”_

_Rachel was deposited at the Athenaeum the next morning by General Matheson himself, his hand tight on her arm and her wrists bound in front of her. He cut her loose and left them standing there, the look he gave Rachel harsh and tender and tied up with a lot of things Cara couldn’t begin to understand._

_He gave her a curt nod and left without a word, stoic to a fault, as ever._

_“I’m Cara,” she said, awkward, stepping forward with a hand outstretched._

_Rachel eyed her hand, in suspicion or displeasure she wasn’t sure. Finally, she lifted her arms, rubbing at one wrist before clasping Cara’s hand in hers. “Rachel. Matheson.” She seemed to tack on the last name as something of a private rebellion. ‘Yes,_ that _Matheson,’ Cara imagined her thinking._

_There was a degree of awkwardness that took them months to overcome, Cara the warden and Rachel the prisoner, for all appearances. But they grew close, all their days and nights just the two of them rattling around in that old, dusty building. They had to be delicate, couldn’t just ask her straight out to be a resistance spy, or some other romantic nonsense term, but Cara was sure she could be won to their quiet cause._

_They had both called the Athenaeum home for three months to the day and she had jokingly brought home a bottle of cheap moonshine from the market to celebrate their ‘anniversary.’ Rachel jumped at the chance for a drink, even in celebration of such a morbid marker, and after the initial revulsion, it only tasted like lighter fluid instead of acid rain. At least, that was the comparison Rachel made after a glass and a half in bent Dixie cups, and it sounded good to Cara._

_Rachel’s laugh was infectious, ringing oddly through a building that hadn’t seen laughter in close to a decade. She sprawled on her side on the floor, fingers in her hair and a hand pressed over her face. “And Charlie threw her arms up to Bass and yelled, ‘Unca Miles!’ I thought Miles was going to shit, he looked so put out. Never seen two grown men compete over the affection of a three-year-old but god, did she have them wrapped around her finger.”_

_She glanced into her cup, shoulders still shaking. It was such an odd sight, Rachel grinning and talking about her kids, Matheson and Monroe, affection in the slightly blurry, drunken lines of her smile. Her face twisted a bit as she sobered though, eyes glued to her tiny rippled reflection._

_“They were always messed up though, you know. Bass lost his family in a car accident and they both came back from tours in the Middle East, just wrecked. Ben and I would pick them up, put them back together and send them off again, knowing they’d be home in a year and we’d have to do it all over. I guess we must have put a few pieces back crooked the last time.”_

_“We’re going to stop them,” Cara blurted out, a sigh quick on the edge of her words._

_“What?”_

_Cara sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I meant to be more subtle about this but subtle doesn’t mix with moonshine. There’s a growing resistance to the Republic. You’ve got an undiluted stream of information straight from the horses’ mouths and we want your help.”_

_Rachel stared at her, those blue eyes chilling, more so than General Monroe even, somehow. “What could I possibly do? I’m stuck here.”_

_“They need you here for a reason.”_

_Rachel glanced away, tossing back the last of her drink as she sat up._

_“They both visit, regularly. All you would need to do is pass on to me what they say, give us your interpretations. You know them better than anyone else in Philadelphia. You could do so much good, Rachel.”_

_She scoffed, lips twisting into a scowl. “Don’t. You sound like him.”_

_Cara wasn’t sure which of them she meant; they weren’t interchangeable to Rachel like they were to most people. She thought she blew it, that she’d lost them their shot at the perfect spy because she was drunk and excited._

_The next morning, General Matheson came to visit. He intercepted Cara in the hallway, taking the tea tray from her and shutting himself in Rachel’s bedroom, the old chess room upstairs. He was there for hours, voices occasionally filtering out into the hall, now a murmur, now a shout._

_When he left, he looked wrecked, like he’d been the one interrogated instead of Rachel._

_She came down the stairs maybe an hour later, robe drawn tight around her curves though it was the middle of the afternoon. Her eyes were bright with determination, a pad of paper clutched in her hand. “Cara?”_

_Cara all but tripped over herself as she ran out of the main hall. “Yeah?”_

_“You want to stop them? I’m in.” Rachel thrust the pad into her hands and marched up the stairs._

_She glanced over it, eyes widening. Names, dates, places, a virtual laundry list of Matheson-and-Monroe, the unpublished history. Enemies, lovers, brothers-in-arms._

_It wasn’t exactly the key to taking down the Monroe Republic. But it was a hell of a good start._

“I remember that day.” Miles dropped his head back against the door, hands limp in his lap. “Shit. Don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Rachel’s been the best asset we ever could have hoped for. You know, nobody suspects the woman in a cell but, I guess, it’s actually just that nobody suspects the woman they love.” Ellie bit her lip, hands shaking slightly before she clenched them together. He thought maybe she wanted a drink as much as he did. “Seems she kept secrets from us too, though. I had no idea you were- you and she-”

“Nobody knew. No one ‘cept Bass. And- Ben, I think.”

They sat there in the mostly-dark for long drawn out minutes before Ellie pushed herself up and lifted the painting from its stack. She held it up to the lantern light, hanging on to the painted girl’s distant stare for the length of a heartbeat before holding it out to him. “Here. I think you should have it. Maybe give it to her. Or is that cruel, pointing out a birdcage to the bird inside?” She paused, squinting in thought. “Anyway. Take it.”

Miles stared at her, stared at the painting and then stared at her again.

Rachel, a spy.

He really wasn’t sure why he was surprised.

As they said their goodbyes at the basement door, painting tucked under his arm, she grabbed his sleeve. “You have to be in this now. I can’t let you go back and tell Monroe.”

Miles watched her hand clench in his jacket. “What would you do if I did?”

That small hand slid up to the side of his neck and he lifted his eyes reluctantly. “You won’t.”

He really wasn’t sure what made her so sure. He’d never really been that sure of anything.

[ ](http://www.barnesfoundation.org/collections/art-collection/object/6055/girl-with-birdcage-jeune-fille-a-la-voliere)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this chapter wasn't even in the outline. But when I ran across this painting, I knew I had to use it - is any painting more perfect for Rachel's time in Philadelphia? LOVE.
> 
> The painting Ellie is looking at when Miles discovers the Cezanne is Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life or The Happiness of Life) by Henri Matisse. It is one of the highlights of the Barnes Foundation's collection and though it won't have a chapter titled after it, as it's rather too happy for this fic, it will be important later on. So keep it in mind! :)
> 
> For more visuals and information on this fic, visit my absurd nerdy research guide: http://carlier36.livejournal.com/4832.html

**Author's Note:**

> For more visuals and information on this fic, visit my absurd nerdy research guide: http://carlier36.livejournal.com/4832.html


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